Derailed - tales from cricket

After all the hype around India opening their World T20 campaign in ishtyle, the result left everyone dumbfounded. New Zealand had read the pitch better, gambled hard to leave out their pacemen and pulled the carpet right from under the Indians’ feet. Here is a look at few other cases, where the narration did not go by the script. You can’t call them upsets since no ‘minnows’ or Associates were involved.

2012 World T20 Finals – Sri Lanka vs West Indies , October 2012 – Sri Lanka was partying well before the finals began. They had already beaten the Windies in the group match and the final was a foregone conclusion with spin, home advantage and a partisan crowd. Gayle stuttered around for a painstaking 16 ball 3 and the other batsmen did not inspire too much confidence either. But a late onslaught by Marlon Samuels on Malinga lifted them to a modest 137.In reply, the old order of Jayawardane and Sangakkara were chugging along rather nicely. But a flurry of wickets in the middle overs meant that they fell well short of their target. By the time the ninth wicket fell, Samuels was already being dusted and polished for the MOM award. The stadium was stunned into silence but when the West Indies win, nobody complains. If cricket were to have a Maracana moment, this was it.

1992 World Cup opener – Australia vs New Zealand, Auckland, February 1992 – In the four years after the 1987 tournament, one day cricket had made giant strides with the Aussies in the forefront and Dean Jones called himself the one day wonder. When they made the Trans Tasman journey to kick off the event, victory was a foregone conclusion. But captain courageous Martin Crowe lead from the front with a brave ton and followed it up with the master stroke of Dipak Patel opening the bowling. Dibbly, dobbly, wibbly and wobbly then took over the mantle of strangling the Aussie run chase. The Aussies never recovered after this loss and bowed out shortly after while the Kiwis flew into the knock outs.

2003 World Cup opener – South Africa vs West Indies , February 2003 – After the opening ceremony disaster in England 4 years earlier, the opening ceremony drew applauds from all over. The tournament was meant to be South Africa’s redemption after years of isolation, unlucky  losses and the match fixing saga. The campaign got off to the right start with the West Indies score at 12/2 after 10 overs. But then came Lara and took off from where he had left in 1996 with a princely ton. The young guns, Ricardo Powell and Ramnaresh Sarwan provided the late push, taking the score to 278. South Africa were docked an over for slow over rate. Regular wickets pegged them back and a late flourish from Klusener came a bit too late as the ghosts of Edbgbaston returned to haunt South Africa. They lost by 3 runs. They had choked…again.

1983 World Cup finals – India vs West Indies, June 1983 – The mother of all upsets. The invincible Windies looking for a hat trick of titles and the just awakened Indians who were living a dream. India batted first but none of the batsmen really could build on their starts. A substantial last wicket partnership lead them to 183, which was never going to challenge the batting might of the Windies. Then came Kapil’s inspiring speech during the lunch break. Wickets fell regularly and when the captain took out Richards with a running catch, India began to believe. The win came soon thereafter and cricket would never to be the same again.